J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, (Penguin, 1994). p. 1

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, (Penguin, 1994) p. 191

None obey'd the command to kneel,Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight,A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and deadlay together,The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them there,Some half-kill'd attempted to crawl away,These were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the blunts of muskets,A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two morecame to release him,The three were all torn and cover'd with the boy's blood.

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, (Penguin, 1994), p. 46

By the city's quadrangular houses--in log huts, camping with lumber-men,Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,Weeding my onion-patch or hosing rows of carrots and parsnips,crossing savannas, trailing in forests,Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase,Scorch'd ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down theshallow river,Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where thebuck turns furiously at the hunter,Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where theotter is feeding on fish,Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where thebeaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tall;Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, overthe rice in its low moist field,Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum andslender shoots from the gutters,Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over thedelicate blue-flower flax,Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there withthe rest,Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by lowscragged limbs,Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush,Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot,Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the greatgoldbug drops through the dark,Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows tothe meadow,Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulousshuddering of their hides,Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddlethe hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs,Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in itmyself and looking composedly down,)Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heathatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents,Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupting below;Where the dense-starr'd flag is borne at the head of the regiments,Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island,Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance,Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game ofbase-ball,At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license,bull-dances, drinking, laughter,At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking thejuice through a straw,At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings;Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,screams, weeps,Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks arescatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud tothe mare, where the cock is treading the hen,Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square milesfar and near,Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-livedswan is curving and winding,Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs hernear-human laugh,Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by thehigh weeds,Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground withtheir heads out,Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery,Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,Where the yellow-crown'd heron comes to the edge of the marsh atnight and feeds upon small crabs,Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon,Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree overthe well,Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through theoffice or public hall;Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd withthe new and old,Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome,Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church,Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher,impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting;Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon,flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the clouds,or down a lane or along the beach,My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle;Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy, (behind mehe rides at the drape of the day,)Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or themoccasin print,By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any,Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him,Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my side,Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars,Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and thediameter of eighty thousand miles,Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest,Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly,Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,I tread day and night such roads.

Holden’s apparent hypocrisy – that he spends money recklessly, that he drinks and pursues women while, at other times, decrying this very behaviour – signifies for us the character of child who is acting out the role of a man. If we see The Catcher in the Rye as an odyssey, then Holden’s Ithaca is the apogee of adolescence; sexual awakening.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk ofthe promenaders,The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, theclank of the shod horses on the granite floor,The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs,The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital,The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working hispassage to the centre of the crowd,The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in fits,What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home andgive birth to babes,What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howlsrestrain'd by decorum,Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,rejections with convex lips,I mind them or the show or resonance of them--I come and I depart.

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplanewhistles its wild ascending lisp,The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe andlooks at the oats and rye,The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother'sbed-room;)The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,What is removed drops horribly in a pail;The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods bythe bar-room stove,The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,the gate-keeper marks who pass,The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I donot know him;)The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on theirrifles, some sit on logs,Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views themfrom his saddle,The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for theirpartners, the dancers bow to each other,The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to themusical rain,The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins andbead-bags for sale,The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shuteyes bent sideways,As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown forthe shore-going passengers,The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds itoff in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borneher first child,The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in thefactory or mill,The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's leadflies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is letteringwith blue and gold,The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at hisdesk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the whitesails sparkle!)The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higglingabout the odd cent;)The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clockmoves slowly,The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy andpimpled neck,The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink toeach other,(Miserable!

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,clack of sticks cooking my meals,I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh ofwork-people at their meals,The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncinga death-sentence,The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, therefrain of the anchor-lifters,The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streakingengines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights,The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two,(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)

I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, (Penguin, 1994), p. 9

For Nunning one ‘textual signal’ of unreliability is the expression of uncertainty in dialogue. He uses Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier and his narrator John Dowell as an example that might easily be transposed to The Catcher in the Rye.

Is Catcher in the Rye an assassination trigger? | …

Shortly after publication, the text was discussed as a record of 50s teenage vernacular that may later acquire the importance of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Donald P. Costello, The Language of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ in American Speech, Vol. 34, No. 3 (1959), Duke University Press